Player Hating: A Love Story

Plot Summary:

"Player Hating: A Love Story" delves deeply and intimately into the lives of young “thugs” and takes the audience into an underground world of poverty, gangs, violence and music that certainly they have an inkling of, but few rarely see in this manner—unless they live it. Thirty minutes from downtown Manhattan lies a forgotten community— Crown Heights , Brooklyn ---where death and destruction are as constant as breathing. Half-a-Mill is a 26 year old hip hop artist from the Albany Housing Projects in Crown Heights . Building 193. Raised by his grandparents, Half grew up, Jason Wardlaw, in a two-bedroom apartment with eight to ten other relatives. By the time he was seven, Half was sharing a gun with his brother, ‘cause he was sick of people putting their guns in his face in the elevator of his building, and not being able to do anything about it. Half ’s been running with the same ten guys since he was real little, and they’re his crew, the Godfia Criminals. But he’s the one with real musical talent. He’s the one that will take all of them out of the projects. And that is the heart of this story. How do these young thugs, who have grown up surrounded by violence, watching their friends and family members die, escape this life? Half ’s been signed by the independent label, Warlock Records, and he and his crew are doing most of the work, but that’s ok because it’s still a chance to blow up. And Half wants that so bad he can taste it, but until it happens, he’ll deal drugs, sell guns, bootleg his own tapes---do what he has to do, in order to support himself, his family and his music.
Player Hating follows Half and his crew as they write, perform and launch Half ’s first album, Milion in a desperate bid to escape hopelessness, poverty and death. Through the eyes of an urban poet and philosopher, Player Hating reveals the tragedy of living in a community abandoned by government, but maintained through humor, dignity, and the sheer will to survive.